


My Accursed Human Education

by Arande_Nim



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Depression, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-23
Updated: 2014-08-23
Packaged: 2018-02-14 08:35:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2185002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arande_Nim/pseuds/Arande_Nim
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The mask never came off, with all that follows. It would have been fine if Steve hadn't gone poking around HYDRA records months later. Well, maybe not fine, as such.</p>
            </blockquote>





	My Accursed Human Education

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by [this Tumblr post.](http://johanirae.tumblr.com/post/95412973681/bvckyforbes-buckybarneswho-winter-soldier-au)
> 
> Title from "Snake" by D. H. Lawrence. Not parallel circumstances by any means, but I felt the sentiment was relevant.
> 
> Thanks to qjq for assistance with the Russian text!

The HYDRA lab in Lutsk is located beneath an active chemical plant, and it’s been there so long all of its records are ink-and-paper or VHS. Apart from a few boxes of sadly moldering files, it seems the facility’s main purpose was the maintenance of a large metal tank and an electric chair, its only operative an elderly man who seemed to know much less about his employers than Steve did.

 

“I’m serious, Fury,” he says into his comm. “He says he just comes in twice a year to check the wiring, and I think he’s gonna have a heart attack if I keep asking him questions.”

 

Fury sighs gustily into his ear. “Fine, just take the files and go. Do me a favor and trash the stuff that’s too damaged or dated, alright? My analysts have enough to do digging through all the data you’ve found that’s still relevant.”

 

“My pleasure. You know, if you’re looking for another secretary, I used to be able to type forty-five words per minute.”

 

“That’s not as impressive as you think it is, Rogers. Send me your resume when you can fix a jammed printer.”

 

*

 

Steve finds himself at a bit of a loss after dropping the cardboard box of folders and tapes off at his hotel room. He can’t dive right into the HYDRA files or else he’ll be done too soon and Fury will think he has nothing better to do. Unfortunately, he has nothing better to do.

 

It was easier when SHIELD was around. Rumlow was always recommending movies to watch, which filled time even when they were horrific. Nine times out of ten they were something like _A Serbian Film_ , but then the tenth would be a touching cartoon about a kid and his giant alien robot. (In retrospect, he really should have noticed there was something wrong with Rumlow.) Rollins had liked to talk about football, so he kept abreast of that during the season. Breyer always had something to say about British television, and there was Natasha’s sporadic attempts to build him a love life. It had been so easy to reflect their light he could almost forget he didn’t have any of his own.

 

This was harder. Wandering Europe with Fury in his ear and no one to mirror. Would have been nice if Sam had come along, but he had no taste for a covert mission with no foreseeable end. It was right in HYDRA’s motto: every bolt-hole they found led to two more. Steve had a terrible suspicion he’d be pulling HYDRA weeds straight into the next century.

 

Steve realizes with a jolt that he’s been staring at the box on his bed for almost ten minutes, doing nothing. He hates losing time like that, but it doesn’t really matter. He’s been too late too many times for it to count anymore. Peggy and dancing at the Stork Club. Howard and HYDRA in the car. The United States and drones and spying and WMDs and he’s just going to watch the damned tapes already, _enough_ of this.

 

The first one is too scratched for the ancient VCR to handle, and Steve feels an irrational pang of guilt for smacking it in frustration. Gadgets that are modern to him but obsolete to the world make him feel uneasy. There but for the grace of God go I. He keeps the first tape in case Fury can salvage it.

 

The second features a middle-aged man in a lab coat having sex with a succession of girls in the electric chair. Steve fast-forwards, pale and queasy, but no, the whole tape is just that. The worst part-worse than that they appear to be fucking in an execution chamber-is how blank the girls’ eyes are when he can glimpse them over the man’s shoulder. He would have thought they were dead if they didn’t twitch so often. He throws the second tape away.

 

The third tape is a close-up deconstruction and reassembly of the Winter Soldier’s arm, with commentary. Steve perks up at that, though of course it would be meaningless to him even if he understood the language. The Soldier’s arm had been too badly damaged by their fight on the freeway for it to be of much use to anyone, though Fury had had it detached and shipped to Tony Stark in the aftermath of the Triskelion anyway. It’s nice to think this side trip will be both bloodless and good for something. He keeps it.

 

The fourth tape is blank. He throws it away.

 

The fifth tape is an instructional video for operating the electric chair, which apparently doesn’t kill people in the traditional sense of the word. Steve recognizes a girl from the second tape. He pulls the film out of the cassette and tears it to pieces, then flushes half the pieces down the toilet. He is almost, almost sure that Fury wouldn’t want this one.

 

The sixth tape is one of only two labeled tapes, and it reads “зимний солдат - активация”.

 

The sixth tape-

 

*

 

The sixth tape is an instructional video for thawing out the Winter Soldier and preparing him for a mission. The man from the second and fifth tapes is very emphatic about the gauges on the side of the tank, and there are several close-ups of the various dials and instrument readings. Steve recognizes temperature and barometric pressure, but nothing else. Eventually the readings are to his satisfaction, at which point he pulls a series of levers that cause the tank to open with a hiss audible over the static of the tape.

 

Two younger lab assistants scurry forward to draw out the Soldier, whom Steve recognizes only by the arm since the man is naked and unconscious. They haul him into the chair and begin to towel him dry. They hook him up to an EKG, which shows his heart rate is next to flat but picking up. They wheel over a rack of IVs.

 

It occurs to Steve that this is the definition of dated. The Winter Soldier got his temple caved in by a vibranium shield: his deployment protocols were sad, but not useful to Fury or anyone else. He decides to take this tape and the second to someplace with a kitchen and melt them down to plastic slag.

 

He reaches for the eject button as one of the assistants absently brushes the hair away from the Soldier’s face.

 

*

 

“Something the matter, Captain?”

 

Steve realizes he’s activated his communicator. It’s only supposed to be for missions and emergencies, but this is four months too late to qualify as either. Four months or seventy-odd years. He wants to say something but the words get tangled in his throat and choke him.

 

“You need backup? If you don’t say anything I’m gonna take it as a yes.”

 

“No,” Steve forces the word out. “It’s just. No. Where – Nick, you gotta tell me, what happened to the body? Not the arm, I know Stark got that. I don’t care about the arm, it wasn’t – I mean the rest of him.”

 

A weighty pause. “Are you talking about the Winter Soldier? ‘Cause that would be kind of outta nowhere, but I don’t think Tony Stark has too many other arms in his possession.”

 

Steve stares at the television screen. They are showing Bucky photographs of someone and dressing him in the familiar black combat gear. There is nothing in his face. “I guess so. Just tell me where he is. Please, Nick.”

 

Another pause. “Yes or no: Are we dealing with an undead situation? ‘Cause that’s just-“

 

He’s interrupted by a wild laugh that Steve is aware probably came from himself. “I should be so fucking lucky. No. No. We sort of were, I guess, but not anymore. I need an address.”

 

“There isn’t one. There were a lot of dead HYDRA agents, and the ones we couldn’t identify got cremated and discarded.”

 

The assistants are strapping guns and knives to Bucky like a packhorse. The man holds each up to the camera and explains some damned thing, maybe why they picked them.

 

“Okay. I’m out, by the way. I’m not doing this anymore, nothing I try ever works. Couldn’t kill HYDRA. Couldn’t destroy the Cube. When you think about it, you can’t ever really save anyone, you just buy them a little time. It’s not enough.”

 

“Steve,” Fury sounds taken aback. “You want to tell me what this is about?”

 

On screen, a mask is fastened over Bucky’s face. He becomes anonymous and doomed.

 

“No, sir. I do not.”


End file.
